A short Black Music History Lesson

Intro Music: SOLO BLUES CONTES

Closing Music: Wolf

Mr. Smith gives us a short black music history lesson.

"History goes back to Africa. They had their guitars and musical instruments like the drums and brought to the United States," he says.

The music today is about making money and not about quality work. Mr. Smith is excited that the rap world is creative and that it is a universal art form. The rap world has cursing and violence that he isn't familiar with growing up, but it has a "feeling" standpoint, they express themselves their reality and maybe not all of ours.

"They use to say black music was the devil's music. What does that say about today's music- metal, rap, etc? Some say jazz artists feel threatened because of the popularity of R&B and other music, and not the pure music of jazz." It's essential to bring black music into our black history teaching in schools. It was always a part of our History. Start with teaching kids at home by playing music from our past.

What can these current hip hop artists do for the black community? Kanye, for example, and his wife is helping the community giving people out of prison and more. LeBron James in sports started a school in Ohio. Beyonce also and JayZ do a lot, although we don't hear a lot about what they are doing.